Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon National Park

Heights and nerve rule the Canyon

GRAND CANYON - Starting out on a six-day series of wilderness hikes in the Grand Canyon on unmaintained trails where even a minor misstep can cost you your life is probably not the best time to discover you're terrified of heights.

The "learning adventure," organized by the Grand Canyon Field Institute, was called "Six Days, Five Trails" and I was only five minutes into trail one, the steep Tanner Trail, when I panicked. Surveying the terrain, the drop, and what Grand Canyon-ophiles refer to as the "exposure" (defined as how close you are to the edge of a potentially lethal fall - in this case very close), I had concluded that this adventure might be a huge mistake.